Venison cottage pie by Neil Forbes at Cafe St Honoré in Edinburgh
This is one of our best sellers at the restaurant. It's rich, homely, comforting and a great-tasting dish. If you can't find venison mince, replace with grass-fed beef mince. I pipe my ridiculously buttery mash onto the pies at Cafe, but my mother used to spread the mash over the cooked mince and make a tartan pattern with the back of a fork, who remembers that?
Ingredients: Serves 4
400g of venison mince
4 tbs cold-pressed rapeseed oil
150g of mixed diced vegetables
1 bay leaf
A sprig of thyme
1 litre of very good beef or game stock
1kg potatoes
200ml double cream – heated
100g butter
1 egg, beaten
Salt and pepper
Method:
1. Heat the oven to 160°C.
2. Heat a large ovenproof pot (with a lid) on the hob. Add half the oil and add the venison mince. Keep stirring until the mince is nicely browned, this should take 7 to 8 minutes. Drain through a sieve and reserve.
3. Bring the same pot back up to a high heat and add the remaining oil. Fry the veg for around 6 to 8 minutes. The more colour you add, the more flavour your pie will have. Then add the thyme, the bay leaf and the drained venison mince. Combine whilst still on a high heat and season with salt and pepper. Next add the stock and any leftover gravy and bring to the boil.
4. Once boiling, remove from the heat and cover with a lid. Then place the pot in the oven to simmer for 2 hours, stirring every half hour or so. Then remove the lid and cook for a further hour, stirring every 15 minutes. It should reach a rich, thick stew consistency. Remove from the oven and transfer to a serving dish.
5. For the mash, boil the potatoes in salted water, drain and pass through a potato ricer. Stir in the hot cream and butter.
6. Top the pie with the mash. Use a piping bag to create a decorative design, or spread the mash with a palette knife and use a fork to create ridges.
7. Brush all over with a beaten egg and brown under a piping hot grill. Serve at once with some cabbage or greens cooked with a little beef fat left over from Sunday lunch.
In association with Taste Communications.
www.tastecommunications.co.uk
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article